The rightwing press are so desperate for Jeremy Corbyn to win the Labour leadership race that they are inventing stories to give the impression he already has, according to rival candidate Andy Burnham.

A defiant Tony Blair has dramatically re-entered the debate over Labour’s future with an 11th-hour appeal to party members to come to their senses and reject the “Alice in Wonderland” politics of Jeremy Corbyn.

Caroline Flint, a candidate in the Labour deputy leadership contest, has put herself on a collision course with Jeremy Corbyn by claiming that she would use the strength of being directly elected to force the next leader to learn the lessons of the electorally successful Blair years.

David Cameron has used his final prime minister’s questions to praise the public service of his fellow MPs while roundly mocking his opposite number, Jeremy Corbyn, for being so ineffective that a Conservative voter once urged him to try to keep the Labour leader in his job.